The use of disposable gloves is common in many industries, such as food handling establishments where food such as sandwiches or the like may be prepared and sold to a customer, or other open food products such as meats are selected from a tray and wrapped for a customer to purchase. The use of such gloves is intended to improve hygiene and prevent the spread of germs which may take place if such food products are handled by bare hands. In other applications, disposable gloves are used by persons working in the medical and pharmaceutical industries, for example persons performing surgery, or doing medical research, where eliminating contamination (or cross-contamination) is paramount.
Disposable gloves are commonly sold in a box. A user pulls the gloves from an opening in the top of the box and subsequently applies them by hand. This requires the user to have significant contact with the exterior of the gloves prior to, and during, application of the gloves. As such, the outer surface of the glove can become contaminated with bacteria, dirt and/or other unwanted material present on the user's hands. In such situations, the person cannot simply pick up and ‘pull on’ some gloves using their hands, and expect that there will be no transfer of their own bacteria onto the exterior of the gloves which are intended for sterile use. Often more than one glove is removed at the same time from the box of new gloves, thereby creating waste. Additionally the process of putting on such gloves is slow.
An automated glove dispensing machine has been proposed in International Patent Application No. PCT/AU2008/001377 in the name of the present applicant. The machine includes a compartment for storing a roll of dispensable gloves, a moveable indexing arrangement for drawing a line of the gloves from the roll to a hand insertion station of the machine, and a glove opening device for opening the end glove of the line for insertion of a user's hand at the hand insertion station. The roll of gloves comprises a series of panels each comprising a disposable glove, where consecutive ones of the panels are joined together by a frangible connection. In use, the frangible connection is torn to separate the glove from the line as the user withdraws their hand from the hand insertion station.
However, it has become apparent that applications exist where a dispenser of freely separated, disposable gloves which are not frangibly joined to one another, and there is no possible contact between the exterior of a user's hand and the gloves located in the dispenser.